


Light Up

by smilebackwards



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:48:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/pseuds/smilebackwards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cam never had much of a plan, but something about the way the blue glow of the Ancient tech reflects in John's smile makes him think <i>now</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light Up

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://sg-flyboys.livejournal.com/profile)[**sg_flyboys**](http://sg-flyboys.livejournal.com/) ficathon

"Are you going to marry my Uncle John?" Madison asks.

Cam almost spits his coffee all over the table. "Um...," he says.

He thinks most parents or relatives of a child who's just asked an intensely personal question would make at least a token attempt to reign the kid in or have them apologize. McKay just looks at Cam, all sharp-eyed expectation, like he's even more interested in Cam's answer than his niece.

Cam looks frantically around for John, but he's across the room sitting on the couch with Jeannie. John's body is curled forward in a full body laugh over a photo album. "I think your sister is showing John your baby pictures," he tells McKay in hopes of deflecting his attention.

"She's showing him the McKay family vacation debacle of '87. And it wasn't my fault that the scientists at Cape Canaveral didn't properly appreciate my demonstration of the more efficient rocket fuel I'd designed," McKay says, unconcerned. "I want to know your intentions."

"Wait," Cam says. "Do you mean you want me to ask your _permission_ to propose to John?"

"I think I ought to be consulted, yes," McKay says, haughty, his chin tipped up.

Cam sort of wants to call McKay an entitled prick, but Madison is looking on with big, hopeful eyes and Cam remembers taking John home to visit his folks in Kansas, the way John blushed when Cam's mama called him sweetheart and gave him an extra large slice of apple pie. John reciprocated by taking Cam to San Francisco, to the floating blue city of Atlantis where he introduced Cam to his team, and then by dragging Cam here to the frozen wastelands of Canada and the warm suburban home of the Millers.

Cam checks to make sure John is still occupied before pulling the ring out of his pocket. It belonged to his great grandfather and the gold is age darkened and heavy. It's warm in the palm of his hand. "Well, what do you think?" Cam asks.

Madison beams. McKay's face does something complicated, twisting and smoothing out. "All right," he says, somewhat grudging. "But you'd better make him happy. I destroyed five-sixths of a solar system once. You wouldn't stand a chance."

-

The trip to Canada comes and goes without a proposal and once they're back at the SGC McKay keeps giving Cam twitchy _what the hell are you waiting for?_ looks over John's shoulder. If the guy didn't have access to twenty pounds of naquadah, Cam would punch him in the mouth.

-

Cam finds John in one of the winding sub-basements that twist through the bowels of Cheyenne Mountain. He's been walking around, lost, for going on twenty minutes when he notices the faint splash of blue light creeping out all along the cracks of a half open door.

Peering in, Cam sees John sitting cross-legged on a lab table. He doesn't seem to be wearing any essential-to-life safety equipment, so Cam steps cautiously into the room.

"What are you doing?" Cam asks, intrigued.

John doesn't seem particularly enthused. "Light switch duty," he says listlessly, picking up something that looks vaguely like a double-handled ice cream scoop and turning it over in his hands. Finding it wanting, he tosses it less than delicately into a box labeled NOT ACTIVE in scrawled black marker, the handwriting barely legible.

Cam winces, imagining the tirade Jackson would go off with if he'd been witness to the mishandling of artifacts. "What are they doing?" Cam asks, pointing toward the corner of the room where two men in lab coats are gleefully poking at something with a spectrometer. The artifact is box-shaped and glowing, clearly the source of the blue light that drew Cam in.

John glances over. "Well, they think they're unlocking the secrets of Ancient technology. I didn't have the heart to tell them that thing is just the Ancient equivalent of Boggle. We have half a dozen of them back on Atlantis." He smirks. "Rodney used to rent them out to people in exchange for coffee rations."

Cam never had much of a plan, but something about the way the blue glow of the Ancient tech reflects in John's smile makes him think _now_. "Hey," he says, "I've got something to ask you."

"Sure. What's up?" John says, tossing a spiked ball into the NOT ACTIVE box and reaching for something that looks like the Ancient version of an alarm clock.

Cam goes down on one knee.

John is suddenly all focus. "What are you doing?" he asks slowly.

"I'm asking you to marry me," Cam says, pulling his great grandfather's ring out of his pocket and offering it to John.

John freezes for a full ten seconds and then reaches for the ring like it's an impossible thing, like a fully charged ZPM or a legally binding contract prohibiting McKay from hitting on Sam.

Half a dozen of the Ancient artifacts awaiting John's magic ATA gene light up where they're sitting. A thin blue disc skitters along the lab table and falls to the floor with a crash. Even something in the NOT ACTIVE box goes suddenly bright.

"Does this mean you're happy?" Cam hazards.

"Yeah," John says.

"So you're saying yes, right?" Cam asks.

John slides the ring past the knuckle on his fourth finger. "Yeah," he says, again, grinning. "Yeah."

Cam grins back, feeling his heart restart in his chest. "Great," he says. "That's--"

"Sheppard!" McKay yells, turning the corner into the lab. "You'd better have activated the holographic data displayer by now! It's been..." He pulls up short, taking in the way Cam's still kneeling on the floor and the ring on John's finger.

"Finally!" McKay says, throwing his arms up over his head. He looks at all the lit up Ancient tech and glares over at the scientists who've been gaping at Cam and John for the past minute and a half. "Why the hell are you two idiots playing Ancient Boggle when we finally have a working levitation device to test?"

"I promised Madison she could be the flower girl," Cam tells John.

"Okay," John laughs, grabbing Cam by the collar of his BDUs and kissing him hard.

 


End file.
